Rethinking Explanation
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Modes of Explanation
Modes of Explanation is the first book in decades to attempt to bring these conflicting approaches together and to offer a compelling narrative to explore how the paradox of 'explanation' can converge.
Rethinking Explanation
Author: Johannes Persson
language: en
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Release Date: 2007-05-16
This volume is a product of the international research project Theory of Explanation, which was funded by the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (NOS-HS). The project started in 2001 and operated for a period of three years by organizing a number of workshops on scientific explanation in Norway, Iceland, Sweden and Finland. The workshops included presentations by people involved in the project and by invited guests. Both groups are represented in this volume, which brings together some of the papers presented in these meetings. The central theme of the research project was scientific explanation, but it was approached from many different angles. This plurality of approaches is also visible in the present volume. The authors share a joint interest in explanation, but not the same theoretical or methodological assumptions. As a whole, this volume shows that, although the theory of explanation has been a major industry within philosophyof science, there are still both conceptual problems to be solved and fresh philosophical ideas to explore. The papers in this volume have been divided into two broad groups. Part 1 consists of papers dealing with general issues in the theory of explanation, while the papers in Part 2 focus on some more specific problems. Part 1: Theory of Explanation
Scientific Explanation
Author: Erik Weber
language: en
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Release Date: 2014-07-08
When scientist investigate why things happen, they aim at giving an explanation. But what does a scientific explanation look like? In the first chapter (Theories of Scientific Explanation) of this book, the milestones in the debate on how to characterize scientific explanations are exposed. The second chapter (How to Study Scientific Explanation?) scrutinizes the working-method of three important philosophers of explanation, Carl Hempel, Philip Kitcher and Wesley Salmon and shows what went wrong. Next, it is the responsibility of current philosophers of explanation to go on where Hempel, Kitcher and Salmon failed. However, we should go on in a clever way. We call this clever way the pragmatic approach to scientific explanation and clarify briefly what this approach consists in. The third chapter (A Toolbox for Describing and Evaluating Explanatory Practices) elaborates the pragmatic approach by presenting a toolbox for analysing scientific explanation. In the last chapter (Examples of Descriptions and Evaluations of Explanatory Practices) the approach is illustrated with real-life examples of scientists aiming at explaining. This book can be used as a textbook for intermediate philosophy of science courses and is also valuable as “suggested reading” for introductory courses in philosophy of science. The way the book is set up makes it an excellent study and research guide for advanced (MA and PhD) students that work on the topic of scientific explanation. Finally, it is a handy source and reference book for senior researchers in the field of scientific explanations and – more generally – for all philosophers of science.